Keefe Tech grad makes a career taking pictures around the world

Friday

One-time "class clown" Michael Hinchcliffe has grown up a bit since his old days cutting up at Keefe Technical High School.

One-time "class clown" Michael Hinchcliffe has grown up a bit since his old days cutting up at Keefe Technical High School.

Back in the 1990s, hanging out at Beaver Park basketball court, he figured the future held "nothing special."

Things have changed.

Since bugging his mom, Katherine, to let him join the Navy in 1997, Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Hinchcliffe has sailed around the world, lived in Italy for several years and visited Australia, Africa, China, Japan and Korea, taking photos for the service.

In 2007, he married Maribel Valdez and they have a 9-month-old daughter, Aaralyn.

"I'm still a clown," said Hinchcliffe from his current home in Little Creek, Va. "I still like to keep it light."

After growing up in Lawrence, Hinchcliffe moved to Ashland with his mother and sister, Erica, in 1993. He studied printing at Keefe Tech in Framingham and graduated in 1997.

These days the kid who wasn't sure what his future held has become "the man behind the camera" as a photographer and public relations specialist for the Navy.

As a trained photographer, Hinchcliffe has used his skills with a Nikon D100 to document Navy projects in Guam, China, Japan, Australia, Italy and Africa.

He has photographed orphans in Montenegro, Navy firefighters dousing an aircraft carrier's flight deck in a training session, an impromptu dance in an African street, and shipmates building a school for needy children in Guinea, Africa. Hinchcliffe's photos are posted on Navy Web sites and used as training aids.

A laid-back kid who rarely got further than Shoppers World in the old days, Hinchcliffe was still a teenager when he visited Japan and Hong Kong on shore leave.

"I was pretty young and didn't know what to expect. Asia seemed really advanced with all the high-tech goods, video games and modern buildings. I was somewhat surprised," he said.

Hinchcliffe has visited Guinea, Gabon and Ghana in west Africa. "It was really hot," he remembered. "The people were excited to see us."

He has learned to be sensitive to local values when he snapped a "perfect photo" of a baby sitting on the railing of a "rundown building" and people heatedly intervened. He now suspects they might have been Muslims who object to photography, or possibly simply bothered by the child's poverty.

"Now when we're in someplace new, we ask or show them the camera to make sure it's all right," he said.

Remembering some of the places he has visited aboard the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land, Hinchcliffe said he feels fortunate to have a job that lets him help people in need.

"You can give them hope. Few careers let you do that. I'm lucky," he said.

Stationed at the Naval Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Va., he currently provides communications support for the public affairs office and coordinates fundraising activities for the Navy/Marine Corps relief society.

Looking back, Hinchcliffe thinks one of his luckiest breaks was convincing his mother to let him enlist.

"When he first told me, I said, 'Absolutely not,"' recalled Katherine Hinchcliffe, who now lives in Natick. "Mike kept saying, 'Ma, you need to sign some papers. Can't you at least go talk to the recruiter?"'

After five minutes with the recruiter, she changed her mind, hearing about the discipline and job skills he would pick up.

In September 1997, Katherine Hinchcliffe watched a smartly dressed recruiter lead her son in baggy jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap off to boot camp.

Eleven years later, she is glad she changed her mind. And she is "very proud" of the former class clown.

"Michael has seen the world. He's matured tremendously. The Navy taught him to be independent and take care of himself," she said. "The Navy has given Michael a career, a foundation and security. It's literally given him a life."

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hinchcliffe quickly realized the stakes had become more serious.

"When you join the Navy, they emphasize three values you can never forget honor, courage, commitment," he said. "That's what keeps sailors going."

Since joining the Navy, the kid who never took school too seriously has earned an associate's degree in business administration and plans to keep taking courses. "I'm definitely planning ahead now that I have a daughter," he said.

After completing his 10th year in the Navy, he plans to serve another 10 so he can retire with full benefits and pursue a civilian job in photography.

His first decade in the Navy convinced him "to follow your dream and go out and make a difference."